Overlooked Films: RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE in "Custody"

Here's the second episode of this series, originally broadcast in July 1957, when the show still retained some of its noir roots. The title "Call Mr. D" was used when the show went into syndication. The dialogue and narration sounds true to the earlier radio show, but while Dick Powell's delivery  made the lines funny, David Janssen sounds serious.

The Theme from Richard Diamond (1959)

One of the coolest TV mystery themes ever . . .

77 Sunset Stuff

Our celebration of THE TAINTED ARCHIVE's TV Cops Weekend has apparently become 77 Sunset Strip Weekend here on the Almanack. 

A Complete Episode of 77 Sunset Strip

In honor of THE TAINTED ARCHIVE's TV Cops Weekend (and as a follow-up to yesterday's review of Roy Huggins' "novel" 77 Sunset Strip) here's a complete episode from 1960. This comes to us courtesy of YouTuber Pete53100. Thanks Pete!

My contribution to Gary Dobbs' TV Cops Weekend, titled "The Birth of 77 Sunset Strip" is HERE. 

"The Widescreen Caper" Part 1

Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


TOMORROW: 77 Sunset Stuff

Forgotten Books: 77 Sunset Strip by Roy Huggins

When Gary Dobbs asked me to contribute something to his spectacular TV Cops Weekend (now playing at THE TAINTED ARCHIVE), it was a no-brainer. I chose a piece about the origins of my favorite old detective show, "77 Sunset Strip".  That post, dealing mainly with Roy Huggins’ novel The Double Take, will appear sometime this weekend (I’ll let you know when it's up).

Meanwhile, Here are some thoughts on the slim paperback called 77 Sunset Strip, which purports to be a novel but isn’t. It happened like this: Shortly after Huggins’ private detective Stuart Bailey made his debut in The Double Take (1946), two Stu Bailey novelettes were published in The Saturday Evening Post. A third followed in 1952 in Esquire.

Several years later, when Warner Brothers wanted a detective show for their line-up, Huggins brought Bailey out of retirement and spruced him up for TV. It must have seemed a swell idea, then, to collect those three novelettes and disguise them as “an original suspense novel” to capitalize on the popularity of the show.

Well, it was a swell idea. Here’s how it worked: Huggins started with a couple of pages of new material, locating Bailey’s office at the TV address, and mentioning Dean Martin’s nightclub Dino’s, which was right next door. Then he plugged in the Esquire story, originally called “Death and the Skylark”.

Bailey is hired to take a jaunt on a private schooner. His client, owner of the Skylark, believes he’ll be murdered, and wants Bailey to catch the killer - either the wife or her lover, the first mate. Also on board is the victim’s appealing daughter Betty Callister.

After putting that case to bed, Bailey returns to his office with Betty Callister in tow, planning to take her to dinner. But he finds a telegraph waiting, summoning him to the second case, originally called “Appointment with Fear.” This one begins as a locked room mystery - with Bailey waking up to find himself accused of the murder - then grows into something more complex.

Clearing himself at last, Bailey returns, arranging to meet Betty at his office and resume that dinner date. No such luck. The phone rings, and Bailey is off on “Now You See It”, a sort of combination locked room and drawing room mystery. Bailey has scarcely arrived at the new client’s home when the lights go out, the client is stabbed to death, and the weapon disappears. It’s another tough case, but Bailey wins through and returns to his office, receiving a call from the unnaturally patient Betty Callister, now waiting for him next door at Dino’s. As he hustles out of the office the phone rings again - and this time he ignores it.

77 Sunset Strip is a good, fast read. Bailey is an engaging narrator, and Huggins keeps things interesting. He could have taken the TV tie-in a step farther, at least giving walk-on rolls to Bailey’s TV partner Jeff Spencer (Roger Smith) and parking attendant pal Kookie (Ed Byrnes), but chose not to. What surprised me most was the change of style from that used in The Double Take.

The Double Take, as you’ll recall from earlier Forgotten Books reviews (see below), is a virtual clone of a Philip Marlowe novel. Huggins did an amazing job on it, coining fresh new similes and metaphors at a rate of about one per page - every one of them worthy of Mr. Chandler.

These novelettes are more streamlined. Huggins does deliver a few Chandleresque lines, but only two or three per story. My guess is that he simply found them too much work to produce, and now felt comfortable enough in his own style to do without.

The cover art for this paperback is the work of Mr. Robert McGinnis.

The color illustrations above, by George Englert, are from the Stu Bailey story "Appointment With Fear" in The Saturday Evening Post, September 28, 1946.

For fine reviews of The Double Take, I refer you to J. Kingston Pierce and Richard Robinson. 

Start the day with "The Saint"

.
This is one of the coolest TV themes ever, and never fails to get my juices flowing - especially when performed by Roland Shaw. But I can't hear it anymore without recalling Gary Dobbs' hilarious piece, How to Emulate the Saint on a Limited Budget. If you missed it the first time, it ain't too late.

"The Saint" by The Roland Shaw Orchestra

Alfred Hitchcock Presents... A Swingin' Tune

...for swingin' by your neck, that is. Ralph Marterie and his Marlboro Men, who did Perry Mason for us a while back, return with their hip rendition of The Alfred Hitchcock Theme, also known as "Funeral March of a Marionette". Hit it, Ralph...

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" 
by Ralph Marterie and his Marlboro Men

Swingin' with "Perry Mason"

You've heard this theme a thousand
times. Maybe a million. But Ralph Marterie and his Marlboro Men (I kid you not) give it a new kind of cool on this track from the 1959 LP "Music for a Private Eye." It'll make you want to rush out for a pack of Marlboros. Also on the album: themes from Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Gunn, The Thin Man, Richard Diamond, 77 Sunset Strip...  Stay tuned.

"Perry Mason" by Ralph Marterie & his Marlboro Men

The Theme from "Dragnet"

The story you are about to see is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. If those words don't start the Dragnet theme playing in your head, the mp3 below surely will.

"Dragnet" by Si Zentner and his Orchestra

Davy's Jukebox: 77 Sunset Strip Cha Cha

A great show with a great theme, and a fine soundtrack album. Click the mp3 player below to hear Warren Baker and his Orchestra perform the ultra-cool cha cha cha version from the show. As you may know, Roy Huggins based 77 Sunset Strip on his own hardboiled detective character Stu Bailey, who had appeared in the novel The Double Take and several short stories in the 40s. More on the stories later. For now, just listen and groove.

"77 Sunset Strip Cha Cha" by Warren Baxter and Orchestra